


Do You Hear The Crack When I Break?

by starkind



Series: This Is It Boys, This Is War [6]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Changing Tenses, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gift Fic, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Not A Fix-It, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-10-30 02:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20807375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkind/pseuds/starkind
Summary: Back from Titan, Tony finds solace in a place he believed long-lost.Like him, Bruce finds something more, but they both knew they have always been living on borrowed time.(Warning: Not a happy ending / fix-it fic)





	1. Tony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlluringPiglet](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=AlluringPiglet).

> This is a gift to AlluringPiglet who was kind enough to ask for something including the following specs: 
> 
> "When I look at him I saw beautiful things and I just couldn't help but wish that when he looked at me he saw the same" M.W - Make me smile like an idiot with fluff 😀😀😀😀 or
> 
> "On your headstone should we write that you loved all of the things that destroyed you. But the things that ruined you, loved you too" lostcap - Kill me with angst. 
> 
> \--> Both. Both. Both is good. Can I do both? Well, I did both. Hope that is alright, even if the fluff is most likely not enough to make anyone smile because the angst seemed overpowering. My apologies!!! Still, I hope I can remotely do your prompt justice.
> 
> Also: Hello, way-overdue IW/Endgame fic. Sorry I haven't been acknowledging you, but I was busy ignoring canon and trying to put my heart back together. Still missing a few pieces here and there, but upon receiving that lovely prompt from AlluringPiglet, my first thought was - THIS should be the series it'll end up in. 
> 
> Sources of quotes can be found at the end.  
Also, the title of the fic is taken from a line out of Brandon Flowers' song 'Lonely Town' (2015)

I returned from Titan to find half of the population gone without a trace. All from a simple snap of Thanos fingers? Seemed straight out of a bad Hollywood script. Turned out it was not. It was real, billions had died, and there were only some left. Rhodey, thank God, also Pepper and Happy.

The kid, I had lost. That still haunts me, seeing him turn to dust under my hands. But not just him. The Avengers had literally crumbled and I had been given another chance. It was like my worst nightmare had finally come true – and I was going to live to see through it. So here is what I did.

I left.

New York, my friends, everything. I could not stand to see the consequences of my failure.

Cowardly? Perhaps. I've been called worse.

When I realized where my feet (jet boot thrusters) had taken me, I found myself back at a place I had not visited in over a decade.

Why here? Why now?

I don't know.

Part of me hoped to find something I thought I had lost ages ago. Just maybe – if fate had a twisted sense of humor then it surely could... would...?

Turned out I wasn't disappointed.

And there was my second chance, standing up there on the weathered, lithic steps of that enormous Manor of his. He looked at me with eyes full of grief and pain far too much for someone his age; but then again, he had been wearing that look ever since that one night he became an orphan. He had lost so many people already, and now Thanos had taken even the last ones he could trust.

I thought he would tell me to leave; after all I had failed him yet another time.

But he didn't.

And here we are. Beginning. At the end.

Together.

+

Boo (he tells me he hates the nickname but keeps on reacting to it. Hypocrisy at its finest) makes it easy to settle into a rhythm of living together.

Ten years ago, I would have had to drug and drag his body out of Gotham City even for a dinner date. Nowadays, he has his own wing high up the Tower. Not that he really needs it, because we share every space whenever our schedules allow us to be together. He may be done being his city's vigilante for various reasons, but he does not begrudge me being Iron Man. Accepts it since he knows it's part of who I am.

Even if it means nothing these days.

He and Pepper work hard on bringing the two companies back to a level of normalcy with those who are left to run the business. They put so much effort into getting the population back on track with monetary help or, more importantly, with humanitarian aid – be that shelter or medical and food supplies. Seeing them work and having them around eases the pain, the grief, the feel of failure. A little.

You know how they say 'You can't love someone unless you love yourself first'? That is utter bullshit. See, I've never loved myself. Not even after redeeming myself, post-Afghanistan, and I use that term redemption loosely, because, damaged goods and all that jazz.

But him. Oh God, I love him so much, I sometimes forget what hating myself feels like.* He makes me want to move on. Not through mindless, meaningless conversation but simply because he does not urge me to forget. Knows how impossible forgetting is. How it would solve nothing.

What we have now would not have been possible without all the grief, the anger, the pain, the loss. And he taught me to draw strength from that alone. That's just how he is. Authentic, resilient, strong, dependable. And, despite all the hardships, still capable of love.

Of loving me, which is no easy feat.

He hates compliments. Shrugs them off or pretends not to hear. But when I look at him I see beautiful things, and I just cannot help but wish that when he looks at me he sees the same. At the same time, however, I know he's the epitome of everything that's good and that I could never be.

And that is alright with me, because I am a better person with him around.

And for that, I am eternally grateful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * source and original quote found here: https://constant-nxthing.tumblr.com/post/102251066803/you-cant-love-someone-unless-you-love-yourself


	2. Bruce

There is a saying, I do not know by whom: 'The loneliest people are the kindest, the saddest people smile the brightest, and the most damaged people are the wisest. All because they don't wish to see others suffer like they do.'*

That is Tony Stark in a nutshell.

As for me? I am not one of those good people. I never was. Somehow, he still saw something in me that convinced him otherwise. Made him reach out; be bold enough to try and make it work. Us. During the past five years, we have build our future from the ashes of the past and the present.

Now there is not only he who makes every day worth living, but also our daughter.

Morgan, whose parents have not survived the snap after she had been less than a year old. Who was given to us through fate and who makes both of us strive to be good people in a world that has shown many times how good people end up paying the ultimate price for bad people's decisions.

When the remaining Avengers came to seek out Tony, they tried to reel him back in, baiting him by appealing to his guilty conscience. I thought about preventing them from seeing him, because I knew they were going to take him from me. Even as a man of flesh and blood, there are ways to bend the rules.

I am not one of those good people. I never was.

And Tony?

He refused them at first. Knew what he had was everything he never thought he could have.

But the seed of doubt had been planted.

It did not take long after that until we argued and fought. In the end, he had to follow his heart. Told me that he owed it to everyone who had not been as lucky as us. He refused to involve me, saying Morgan needed at least one parent if things went sour.

I did not hate him for it.

Them?

Maybe.

For taking something I held dear; something that belonged to me.

I showed up despite our agreement. But I was too late. Having to witness his sacrifice clawed open gaping wounds which had never really been mended ever since that night in the Narrows. I held him as he was trying to breathe through the pain, heard the hitch in his voice as he whispered.

The nickname no one but him used fell from his lips as a near-soundless exhale. I told him I loved him until his eyes became unfocussed forever. I kept on talking even if he did not hear me anymore. Told him that his headstone should read that he loved all of the things that destroyed him.

But the things that ruined him loved him too.

In the end, his headstone reads something else. Something more honoring and worth his sacrifices.

  


~Proof that Tony Stark Had A Heart~  
Missed But Never Forgotten.  
1970 – 2023

  


I took Morgan along every morning after breakfast, to visit his gravesite high up on the hill under the willow tree, next to my parents' cracked and weathered tombstones. She was still too young to understand that her daddy was not coming back.

Explaining death to a child seemed impossible. Especially when her real parents came back, three months after the funeral. Revived from the second snap by the person who meant everything to me. They were grateful, and I had no choice but to let her go.

Morgan would always have a home here, just like in the past five years, but one look at the family told me everything I knew. It would be the last time I was going to see her. Part of me wanted to fight them for her, take her back to leave me at least with something against the void.  
  
I am not one of those good people. But those I have loved were.

And in that way, he was a better man than me. All along. Our daughter will be raised knowing her surrogate father has died a true hero, while I have to live with the knowledge of failing him for the rest of my life. That is what hurts the most. What keeps on killing me inside each new day.

  
The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * source: unknown (?)
> 
> Once I was done making myself sad, I imagined an epilog where Bruce, spirit broken, goes to Tibet/Nepal to turn his back on society and finds the Ancient One who allows him to see a way to bring Tony back via the time stone.
> 
> So yeah, I'm back to ignoring canon now, thank you for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> source for original quote 1: https://themindsjournal.com/looked-saw-beautiful-things/  
source for original quote 2: https://clexawrites.tumblr.com/post/133251999804/on-your-headstone-should-we-write-that-you-loved/amp


End file.
